This invention is in the field of dental floss devices formed into closed loops for manipulation by a person's fingers between adjacent teeth in a person's mouth and a method of manufacturing such loops and a method and apparatus for packaging and dispensing such loops. In dental health literature it has been well established that regular flossing between the teeth at least once a day is extremely useful in reducing and minimizing the amount of plaque buildup on tooth surfaces and particularly the crevice surfaces where adjacent teeth are close together and difficult if not impossible to reach and clean with a toothbrush. Typically floss has been used by uncoiling and cutting a strand of floss about eighteen inches long from a spool, wrapping ends of the strand about fingers on a person's two hands, and manipulating the strand between selected teeth in the mouth. This traditional technique consumes a substantial quantity of floss every time one engages in the flossing activity and requires considerable dexterity and/or endurance on the part of user's fingers which often experience pain since the floss is tightly wrapped around them can cut the skin or cause circulation to be temporarily cut off.
Various floss devices have been developed in attempts to reduce the difficulty of this oral health procedure. One of these approaches has been the development of dental floss holders such as those illustrated in U.S. Design Pat. Nos. D 227,896 which illustrates a V-shaped floss holder, and D 244,609 which illustrates an S-shaped floss holder, the latter having two segments of exposed floss as contrasted with a single segment in the former design. A later development and variation in this field of dental floss holders or devices is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,016,892 wherein a segment of floss has individual gripping elements at each end which can be held very easily and allow for similar ease of manipulation in the person's mouth without requiring the wrapping of floss around the finger. This new device uses about five inches of floss instead of eighteen to twenty-four and eliminates the inconvenience and/or discomfort of wrapping the floss around one's fingers. A still further variation in the field of floss devices is the formation of floss into a closed loop with two gripping elements secured on the circumference of the loop at two spaced apart locations. In use, a portion of the loop in between the gripping elements is maneuvered into the space between two adjacent teeth while the elements are held by pairs of fingers of the two hands respectfully as generally discussed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,315,516 and 4,315,517.
The purpose of the present invention is to provide an improved floss loop device along with an improved method of making such devices, and to provide simultaneous methods and apparatus for packaging these devices in practical dispenser containers. An object of the invention herein is to provide a very efficient, economic and high-speed technique and design for manufacturing the new devices and optionally for automatically and simultaneously packaging such devices into dispenser containers. A further object is to provide such dental floss loops with a structural design that constitutes an improvement over the various known prior art dental floss holder devices.
The invention possesses other objects and features of advantage, some of which will be apparent from the following description and the drawings. It is to be understood, however, that the invention is not limited to the embodiments illustrated and described since it may be embodied in various forms within the scope of the appended claims.